


I need you

by impalabro



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Episode: s08e17 Goodbye Stranger, Feels, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-03-31
Updated: 2013-03-31
Packaged: 2017-12-07 03:03:12
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 355
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/743445
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/impalabro/pseuds/impalabro
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Castiel realises that he doesn't need to hear Dean tell him he loves him.</p>
            </blockquote>





	I need you

The Earth revolves around the Sun. Similarly, Castiel revolves around Dean, around his prayers and his fears. When Dean calls, Cas is there without a second thought. He shares some of the hunter's burden, pushing his own out of mind. He listens; he helps. It killed him, then, having given Dean a part of himself to keep, given his nights spent in the Impala and his grace wrung dry smiting demons and defending from Leviathan, it really killed him that Dean wouldn't tell him what he needed to hear. 

By the time Dean had found him again in Purgatory, Cas had been ripped apart and sewn back together all wrong and what he needed to hear was that Dean loved him and would he please stop all this crap and go back to how everything was before the world got in the way. But he didn't hear it from Dean, who thought a hug and an "I need you" was enough to consummate years of codependency and mutual growing together.

When Cas had been beating the hell out of Dean, he wanted, in the part of him unspoilt by Naomi, to take Dean in his arms and bless him and kiss him, to show him that "I need you" was not enough and would never be enough, and to have Dean, bruised and bloodied and beautiful, tell him he loved him there and then. But again, Dean choked out "we're family" and "I need you", and suddenly Cas found that the effect it had was more gut-wrenchingly brilliant than an admission of love could ever be. 

Everything turned on its head; Dean needed Cas, Dean revolved around Cas. In that, "I love you" was implied and a whole ton of other stuff was implied on top. Dean had said everything the angel had wanted, in a way so intense that Cas didn't realise until he'd battered him beyond human tolerance. 

"Need" betters "love". Need is holding somebody close to you and burying yourself in them and them in you; your feelings, your anxieties and your happiness. "Need" is primal and instinctive and never goes away.


End file.
